Often,
Air pollution causes irritation in nose, throat, lungs
and eyes. It causes breathing problems and aggravates existing
health conditions such as emphysema and Asthma.Frequent exposure to
polluted air increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Particulate matter in the polluted air can induce hardening of the
arteries, triggering cardiac arrhythmia or even a heart attack.People
afflicted with heart disease, children and older people are more
sensitive to and are affected more by air pollution .Inhalation of particulate
matter has adverse health impacts and there is understood
to be no safe thresholds below which no adverse effects would be anticipated.
The biggest impact of particulate air pollution on public health is
understood to be from long term exposure to PM 2.5 which increases
the age specific mortality risk , particularly from cardio vascular
causes. Several plausible mechanisms of this impact on mortality have been
proposed although it is not yet clear which is the most important. Exposure to
high concentrations of PM (e.g. during short term pollution episodes) can
also exacerbate lung and heart conditions, significantly affecting quality of
life, and increase death and hospital admissions. Children, the elderly and
those with predisposed respiratory and cardio vascular disease are known to be
more susceptible to the health impacts from air pollution.
The
largest source of air pollution in cities is from vehicle exhaust fumes.
In large cities, over 80% of the fatal pollutants that
cause lung damage comes from cars, buses, motor cycles and other vehicles
on the road.The pollutants like sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides
and carbon dioxide come from factories, automobiles and industrial or
manufacturing plants. These gases react with water molecules in
the atmosphere to produce acid rain.
|
S.No. |
City |
PM 2.5 |
|
|
|
153 |
|
2.
|
|
149 |
|
3.
|
|
144 |
|
4.
|
|
134 |
|
5.
|
|
117 |
|
6.
|
|
111 |
|
7.
|
|
107 |
|
8.
|
Khormabad
( |
102 |
|
9.
|
Ahmedabad
( |
100 |
|
10.
|
|
96 |
|
11.
|
|
96 |
|
12.
|
|
93 |
|
13.
|
|
93 |
|
14.
|
|
92 |
|
15.
|
|
91 |
|
16.
|
Idgir ( |
90 |
|
17.
|
Narayonganj ( |
89 |
|
18.
|
|
88 |
|
19.
|
|
88 |
|
20.
|
Khanna ( |
88 |
This requires serious
efforts by the Government of India, governments of U.P. and
governments of other states. This also requires real
time monitoring of air pollution ,
especially of PM2.5. Monitors need to be installed in all big
offices and schools.
Masks are somethings we can
look for, in order to protect ourselves from this growing air
pollution .
We also need to change our mind set and work together to protect
our environment.
Education Boards should make environment education compulsory
subject because environment preservation can happen with massive
awareness and action oriented activities by the students. Environment should be
one of the subjects in grade 12 th so as to provide
opportunities to the students for specialisation in environment. Schools can
organise environment awareness seminars and conferences for students, parents
and other education establishments.They
can minimise the use of air- conditioning gadgets. They should celebrate clean and green Diwali.
Students, teachers and parents can use car pool for transportation
to reduce carbon emissions and air pollution. They can also use cycles and non
fossil vehicles.
We can request our Prime Minister
and Chief Minister of the State to start
a campaign against air pollution. Campaign against air pollution should become
a National Campaign.Media should
partner with schools and voluntary organisations for environment education projects.
We need to plant more trees. Strict enforcement needs to be be done against felling of trees.
Even for infrastructure projects, minimum number of trees should be felled.
In Bhutan ,
government has made a policy of no motor vehicles on one Sunday of every
month.Certain zones of some cities (like London )
have been declared as congestion zones and motor vehicles are strictly banned
from those areas. In Delhi ,
this policy is followed on 22 nd
of every month in some areas. A study showed that there was 30% decrease in air
pollution level on those days.In Sri Lanka , Government has passed very
strict laws when it comes to air pollution .People have to ask
permission to fell trees grown in their homes.Government is encouraging cars
that run with electricity.The government is also raising awareness among people
by hosting a lot of environmental programmes.
In Bangla Desh , all buildings should be designed so as to have
at least 20% greenery.The government does not allow people to drive cars
that are older than 20 years of age. Tehran is the
most polluted city in Iran
.The government of Iran has
made a policy that restricts the number
of cars that are on road on depending on
the number plates of the car.In Manila also the same
practice is going on .
It is clear that in India ,
we have really taken the issues related to air pollution very lightly, over the
last five decades.As a result , air pollution has become alarming and a potential health hazard at a
national level.India is the most polluted country in the world from the point
of view of air pollution at PM 2.5
micrograms per cubic metre. .This calls
for all the more urgent action , because air pollution affects the health of
children and the very old more than that
of adults.That requires a very strong
and vigorous campaign for awareness, education , policies and action at
local , regional ,state and national level.(This article was published in March 15,2016 issue of the magazine Tree Take , Lucknow ,India)
No comments:
Post a Comment